First Benghazi whistleblower emerges

It’s subpoena time. And Hillary Clinton’s book tour may not be a warm-up for a presidential campaign so much as a financial and ego exercise. There will be hell to pay on the campaign trail, unless the GOP nominates a dummy.President Obama is poised to reap a whirlwind of consequences for his conduct of the war on terror. Iraq is falling into the hands of the enemy President Bush had defeated on the battlefield. The fact that the Obama administration lied to the American people about the Benghazi attack in order to smooth his re-election makes his failures in conducting the affairs of state not merely a matter of incompetence or honest mistakes but actual venality.

A new report makes these consequences closer to reality.

The Obama administration knew that the Benghazi attack was carried out by terrorists right away, because they listened in on cell phone conversations between the raiders and their leaders, according to testimony given by the first whistleblower to break through the wall of silence. Bret Baier and James Rosen of Fox News (the most trusted TV news source in America) have broken the story and put the lie to Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and all the president’s men and women.

The terrorists who attacked the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 used cell phones, seized from State Department personnel during the attacks, and U.S. spy agencies overheard them contacting more senior terrorist leaders to report on the success of the operation, multiple sources confirmed to Fox News.

The disclosure is important because it adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video that had gone awry, as the administration claimed for several weeks after the attacks.

Eric Stahl, who recently retired as a major in the U.S. Air Force, served as commander and pilot of the C-17 aircraft that was used to transport the corpses of the four casualties from the Benghazi attacks – then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods – as well as the assault’s survivors from Tripoli to the safety of an American military base in Ramstein, Germany.

In an exclusive interview on Fox News’ “Special Report,” Stahl said members of a CIA-trained Global Response Staff who raced to the scene of the attacks were “confused” by the administration’s repeated implication of the video as a trigger for the attacks, because “they knew during the attack…who was doing the attacking.” Asked how, Stahl told anchor Bret Baier: “Right after they left the consulate in Benghazi and went to the [CIA] safehouse, they were getting reports that cell phones, consulate cell phones, were being used to make calls to the attackers' higher ups.”

A separate U.S. official, one with intimate details of the bloody events of that night, confirmed the major’s assertion. The second source, who requested anonymity to discuss classified data, told Fox News he had personally read the intelligence reports at the time that contained references to calls by terrorists – using State Department cell phones captred at the consulate during the battle – to their terrorist leaders. The second source also confirmed that the security teams on the ground received this intelligence in real time.

The report of the so-called Accountability Review Board – which is the screen behind which Hillary Clinton is attempting to hide – did not include any testimony from people with knowledge of these cell phone conversations. The fact the cell phones were stolen and listened in on does not appear in that report.

Major Stahl was never interviewed by the Accountability Review Board, the investigative panel convened, pursuant to statute, by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as the official body reviewing all the circumstances surrounding the attacks and their aftermath. Many lawmakers and independent experts have criticized the thoroughness of the ARB, which also never interviewed Clinton.

In his interview on “Special Report,” Stahl made still other disclosures that add to the vast body of literature on Benghazi – sure to grow in the months ahead, as a select House committee prepares for a comprehensive probe of the affair, complete with subpoena power. Stahl said that when he deposited the traumatized passengers at Ramstein, the first individual to question the CIA security officers was not an FBI officer but the senior State Department diplomat on the ground.

It’s subpoena time. And Hillary Clinton’s book tour may not be a warm-up for a presidential campaign so much as a financial and ego exercise. There will be hell to pay on the campaign trail, unless the GOP nominates a dummy.

President Obama is poised to reap a whirlwind of consequences for his conduct of the war on terror. Iraq is falling into the hands of the enemy President Bush had defeated on the battlefield. The fact that the Obama administration lied to the American people about the Benghazi attack in order to smooth his re-election makes his failures in conducting the affairs of state not merely a matter of incompetence or honest mistakes but actual venality.

A new report makes these consequences closer to reality.

The Obama administration knew that the Benghazi attack was carried out by terrorists right away, because they listened in on cell phone conversations between the raiders and their leaders, according to testimony given by the first whistleblower to break through the wall of silence. Bret Baier and James Rosen of Fox News (the most trusted TV news source in America) have broken the story and put the lie to Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and all the president’s men and women.

The terrorists who attacked the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 used cell phones, seized from State Department personnel during the attacks, and U.S. spy agencies overheard them contacting more senior terrorist leaders to report on the success of the operation, multiple sources confirmed to Fox News.

The disclosure is important because it adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video that had gone awry, as the administration claimed for several weeks after the attacks.

Eric Stahl, who recently retired as a major in the U.S. Air Force, served as commander and pilot of the C-17 aircraft that was used to transport the corpses of the four casualties from the Benghazi attacks – then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods – as well as the assault’s survivors from Tripoli to the safety of an American military base in Ramstein, Germany.

In an exclusive interview on Fox News’ “Special Report,” Stahl said members of a CIA-trained Global Response Staff who raced to the scene of the attacks were “confused” by the administration’s repeated implication of the video as a trigger for the attacks, because “they knew during the attack…who was doing the attacking.” Asked how, Stahl told anchor Bret Baier: “Right after they left the consulate in Benghazi and went to the [CIA] safehouse, they were getting reports that cell phones, consulate cell phones, were being used to make calls to the attackers' higher ups.”

A separate U.S. official, one with intimate details of the bloody events of that night, confirmed the major’s assertion. The second source, who requested anonymity to discuss classified data, told Fox News he had personally read the intelligence reports at the time that contained references to calls by terrorists – using State Department cell phones captred at the consulate during the battle – to their terrorist leaders. The second source also confirmed that the security teams on the ground received this intelligence in real time.

The report of the so-called Accountability Review Board – which is the screen behind which Hillary Clinton is attempting to hide – did not include any testimony from people with knowledge of these cell phone conversations. The fact the cell phones were stolen and listened in on does not appear in that report.

Major Stahl was never interviewed by the Accountability Review Board, the investigative panel convened, pursuant to statute, by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as the official body reviewing all the circumstances surrounding the attacks and their aftermath. Many lawmakers and independent experts have criticized the thoroughness of the ARB, which also never interviewed Clinton.

In his interview on “Special Report,” Stahl made still other disclosures that add to the vast body of literature on Benghazi – sure to grow in the months ahead, as a select House committee prepares for a comprehensive probe of the affair, complete with subpoena power. Stahl said that when he deposited the traumatized passengers at Ramstein, the first individual to question the CIA security officers was not an FBI officer but the senior State Department diplomat on the ground.